Risca (Wales)

Risca (Welsh: Rhisga) is a town in the Caerphilly County Borough and within the historic boundaries of Monmouthshire in south-east Wales. It has a population of 11,228. The town lies at the south-eastern edge of the South Wales Coalfield and has been shaped by mining, together with other heavy industries, for many centuries. Risca is home to Ty-Sign, a large housing estate built in the early 1960s as a satellite village for the then new Llanwern steelworks. Risca has a rural aspect and is surrounded to the east and west by several extensively wooded hills, including Mynydd Machen (1,188 ft; 362 m) and Twmbarlwm (1,375 ft; 419 m), which attract tourists for the hillwalking and mountain bikers to Cwmcarn Forest Drive. Risca has a railway station on the Ebbw Valley Railway, reopened in February 2008.